Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 203: Hidden Within Each Heart

While the others were busy spending their nights the way they wanted, slumbering deep within the ruined lab of Mono, laid a clanking hunk of conscious metal. Hidden so deep that the infernal was barely hidden under the tiles, a blob of an iron monster with eyes more massive than her face, and arms twisted above her head and legs so short they were barely visible under her giant face.

That was, what remained of Aurora–both the master of the mother of automatons and the false daughter to the king of Crows.

She'd planted the seeds for a plunder long ago, she was herself; the master of a prodigy as well as the princess of Elenaris, all at the same time. How? With but one shake of the hand with an unnamed devil. He gave her that ring that powered the first automaton–the very same princess that had now turned to dust and rubble.

The death of her should've been the death of her plans, but if she was a master at anything it was improvising with one failsafe after the other. And that very first failsafe was about to walk in. Pushing open the door to the dusty room, Grace swiftly moved inside. Shutting the secret door behind herself, she looked into the dark and reached for her master with her silver hair crawling on the ground.

"Your plans move swiftly," she muttered, placing a massive smile on the fleshy blob of a face Aurora had.

Moving towards the first automaton whom she herself had planned but never could realize, she kept on smiling at the memory of herself sneaking something perverse in the blueprints she'd handed over to her student.

"Does she realize that the mechanism is flawed?" She asked, her voice raspy and sounded like the clatter of clipped iron.

Glaring into her true master's eyes, a fierce grimace took over Grace's lips. Like a malformed slime, Aurora moves, and since she was at this point part Automaton, the disgraceful sight offended her deeply.

"No, she has not. All automatons are being produced with the same flaws…Ready for you to take over any of their bodies with just your will and a blink of an eye," the thought alone sent chills down Grace's spine. To have to submit her gracious body to a human, she couldn't imagine a fate much worse. And had it not been a deterrent to rebel, she would've left Aurora to die in that dusty cave.

Smiling creepily, the mastermind behind the automaton order slipped into a daydream thinking about building her own empire. With just a thought she could take over any and all automatons, and control them simultaneously with multi-thoughts processing which was perfected by Mono–long after her alleged death.

"What about the king?" She asked, excitedly.

"He's dead, Avarice killed him and I believe Mono is back from the dead," her already bulging eyes widened at the news.

"Her gamble worked?!" She exclaimed, utterly shocked to her core.

"Seems so, that might throw a wrench in your plans, no?" Grace questioned, her eyes squinted in doubt.

To her surprise, instead of seeming worried, Aurora's eyes and lips began jittering in excitement.

"That's great! Now she can build a utopia of progress, all for me to inherit!" Her grand plans made Grace wanna squash her head under her feet, but the very sense of fear in Aurora could mean the end of her own control over her body. Instead of herself, she would become Aurora and through her body, she could commit those atrocities that she'd planned.

'If anything, as long as she's in that mangled body, I'll have far more freedom.' The clatter of something in the background alerted the duo. Someone was there, ruffling up with Mono's lab as well as her dusty equipment.

"I'll go check that out," Grace said before making her way toward the secret door.

"Come to me again once you have more good news," Aurora whispered, her voice still just as ear-piercing as before.

Slipping out of the hidden door, Grace heaved a sigh as she finally got away from the monsters inside. Closing the door that looked like just any other wall, she began following the sounds of footsteps until she found both Mono and Shamisha wandering the laboratory grounds.

For a moment, she thought of escaping unnoticed, but realizing that Avarice's body would easily pick her up, she decided against the risk and instead moved closer to the duo herself.

"Maker Mono, apprentice Shamisha," bowing her head graciously, she put on a poker face that could even fool a devil. "Has things settled down in the castle? The ruckus made me retreat to the comfort of my birthplace."

"How do you know it's me?" Mono asked, her eyes squinted with doubt.

"And I'm no longer an apprentice so don't call me that again," Shamisha complained right after.

Brushing off the complaint, the mono-doll instead focused on her maker instead.

"How can I not recognize you? Your heart, its beating in your chest, and that melody, it still holds your unmistakable passion," though doubtful of her still, having no clue what she'd been up to behind her as well as Avarice's back, Mono decided to let the matter slide momentarily.

Shamisha, however, didn't seem dismissive, even though she still hadn't figured out that the canceling of the commission was all Grace's doing.

"I think it's time to dismantle you Grace, don't you think?" She said as the group began to follow Mono.

"Why do you think so?" Asked the automaton with a fake smile.

"Old age, I doubt it's any more pleasant to an automaton as it is to a humanoid," Shamisha replied, her eyes reflecting a perverse sense of joy.

She wanted to dismantle her completely, let her consciousness fade off into the void. But as old as Grace was, her maker was far older, and Shamisha was not far behind. Hence, having no intentions of passing so soon, she kept the forced smile plastered on her face.

"I doubt that would be pleasant, I enjoy things just as they are right now," although the bunny-girl wanted to push the matter some more, with Mono stopping at a locked door that led to another secret chamber, she was forced to stop and focus on the task at hand.

Soon enough, Avarice's body would be nothing but evidence of a crime, as for Mono? She was about to get another makeover, only her second one over a century's time.

'Talk about old-fashioned.' She thought, looking forward to becoming an elegant militaristic monarch.